


and when the dust settles, we might find solace

by andibeth82



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Drunken Confessions, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Iron Man 3 Spoilers, PTSD, Post Iron Man 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-17
Updated: 2013-05-17
Packaged: 2017-12-12 03:20:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/806601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andibeth82/pseuds/andibeth82
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She finds herself wondering how much longer they’re going to have to switch off on picking up each other’s broken pieces until they can be stable enough to fix each other without falling apart on each other at the same time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and when the dust settles, we might find solace

**Author's Note:**

> I've been a bit of a feelings mess these past two weeks, and wanted to write something longer on these two. Prompted by the ever-lovely [timegoesaway](http://www.twitter.com/timegoesaway), who is a better friend than I can ask for, I was proposed the following (in a nutshell): Tony fixes Pepper, a celebratory dinner takes place, both get tipsy, and feelings about New York/Extremis/events of IM3 ensue. Angst abound!
> 
> (The setting is post movie, however, this kind of takes one scene we saw and rewrites its position a bit. Also, let it be known that I apparently have no muse control when it comes to these two.)

It doesn’t happen immediately (much as she would like it to) because after they get back, she needs some time to herself and he needs some time to himself. But that’s the strange thing about _needing time for themselves_ \- the more they try to stay apart, the more they find they need be together.

They can’t return to the house (not that there’s even a house to return to) but there are some advantages to being the head of a billion dollar company and to being a bonafide superhero that’s saved the world at least three times over, which makes it fairly easy to relocate. A condo some miles away from Stark Industries suffices for the immediate time being, Tony makes it a mission to rewire JARVIS while she focuses on getting things back on track at the office. The few days after Christmas come and go quietly, holidays spent without much fanfare and without much more than a quiet dinner.

At one point, she mentions in passing that she never thought she’d have a quiet night in any capacity when it came to Tony Stark, and the laugh that ensues sounds like the first real thing she’s heard in days.

+

When she dreams, her arms are on fire and her legs are burning, red skin flaming and peeling, exposing bone and blood. He has to hold her sometimes (most times), wake her up and explain it’s not real, and she grips the edges of her pillow instead of his body because she’s still afraid that touching him or twisting the wrong way will cause a fireball explosion. She doesn’t relax until he curls into her, kisses her shoulder and tells her that he has this, that he has her, that she’s going to be okay. And so Pepper relaxes, doesn’t ask about it even though she wants to, even though she knows he wants her to. She doesn’t ask until one morning after breakfast, and when she does, it’s with a squeeze of his hand and a small nod.

That night, he doesn’t come to dinner and he doesn’t come to bed. She falls asleep to the sound of muttering and chair squeaking and tinkering _always tinkering_ and when she wakes up he’s asleep at his desk, scribbled numbers and equations pressing into his cheek, one hand wrapped tightly around a pencil. When she attempts to ease it out of his hands, he only grips it tighter, as if he’s afraid to let go.

(She’d chide him about it but she also understands, has understood for years that Tony Stark never goes after his work less than halfway, has only come to recently understand that she’s the reason for it.)

One week and two days after New Years, arms full of injections and skin sore from needle punctures, she lies on a hospital table and focuses on his face, on the way his hands press against the glass. Three days after that, still groggy from too much medication, she takes the file from his outstretched hands, lets one finger brush over the numbers and letters that don’t quite make sense but that somehow seem to indicate she’ll be okay. When their eyes meet, hers are wet and she thinks his are too but he looks away before she can say something, lifting his shoulders in a manner that feels so familiar, it makes her chest ache for everything they’ve lost and everything that she knows is yet to come.

“What? I told you I’d fix you.”

+

Normally she would be against it, normally she would deter him with one of her best “Tony, stop” voices, but the truth is, Pepper kind of _likes_ that he wants them to celebrate. It’s one more step towards getting them back on the path to normalcy (she laughs because she’s dating a man with metal in his chest, who half the time lives inside a super suit, reminds herself that _nothing is ever normal_ ) and so when he proposes the idea in the midst of packing up at the hospital, she can’t help but throw him a smile.

“Wow. Hey, I know you’re a new woman and all, but I can’t remember the last time I saw one of those in response to one of my grand gestures.”

She rolls her eyes, stepping forward and placing a hand against his chest. “I’m being nice. Besides.” She stops to raise an eyebrow. “If there was ever a time to celebrate, I think this would be it. Don’t you?”

(She notices he’s not quick to respond, but doesn’t let herself dwell on it.)

+

She doesn’t say anything when he pours her first glass of wine after admitting he already had one because for all his “grand gestures,” dinner is at home rather than out on the town – and for that, Pepper is thankful. Being out means an endless array of autographs, being out means answering questions, being out means dealing with things she’s not quite sure she’s ready to handle outside of her own head.

(Being with Tony means she doesn’t have to answer to anyone or anything she doesn’t want to. Being with Tony means that if she ever feels like she’s going to break, the first person that could judge her would also be the first one to help put her back together.)

“Thank you.” She leans over and presses a kiss to the side of his face, feeling the corners of his mouth lift before he pulls away, leading her by one hand to the dining room table.

“Yep. Oh, hey, and just in case you feel really celebratory, there are three bottles of wine tonight. Count ‘em – three. 12% alcohol level too, because if you’re going to shell out money for wine, what’s the point of buying anything less?”

“You ask as if I’d be surprised at the answer,” she replies dryly, and he smirks while raising his glass. In the span of one moment, the smug and sarcastic expression is replaced with something genuine and serious.

_I don’t have anyone but you._

“To Pepper – the one thing I can’t live without, and the one thing that means more to me than any world I might save.”

_You’re all I have too, you know._

She swallows down a lump in her throat, the growing weight in her chest enough that she manages to eat in silence for a few moments until his voice breaks the quiet.

“Look, you know I’ll always save you, right?”

She looks up in surprise, taking his hand. “You should know that I trust you with my life.”

“Right, but, I’m just saying. When you were being tortured…whatever they were doing to you with Extremis, I mean, you knew I would come, right? That I’d never just abandon you like that?”

She puts down her fork with a tilt of her head, watching as he drains another glass. “Tony, why are we talking about this?”

He seems to realize what he’s saying then and shakes his head. “It’s nothing, really. Nothing. Sorry. Tonight…is about you. We’re celebrating you. And we’re going to focus on you and the fact that you’re better. Because that’s all that matters.”

Pepper nods, tries to keep her fingers from fidgeting too much and takes another drink in response.

“It’s just –“ And she looks up when he starts again. “Okay, I’m sorry, I swear I’ll stop.”

“Look, if you want to talk about this, we can –“

“No, no we’re not talking about this, about how I couldn’t save you. We’re not talking about this the same way we’re not talking about New York. Okay?” He’s suddenly speaking a little too fast and Pepper opens her mouth, closing it wordlessly as the sentence registers in her brain.

“Is that what –“ She stops, blinking back the moisture she feels building behind her eyes. “You really believe?”

He presses a hand to his face. “I can’t…I just…god, let me think.”

“Tony!”

“Dammit, Pepper, let me think!” He barks out the words in a voice that sounds like a cross between anger and anguish, getting up from his chair and stumbling towards the door. Frustrated, not having a response she trusts her mouth with, she grabs for the wine bottle. How many glasses has she had so far? She can’t remember, and the fact that she doesn’t remember how many he’s had either sends off the faintest of warning sirens. Drunk Tony, she knew, led to one of two things – fights, sex, or (if she was really lucky) fights and then sex. And as much as Pepper wouldn’t mind throwing him to the ground, clothes be damned, she has a terrible feeling the pendulum is about to swing the other way.

“How do you think I felt, watching you and not being able to do anything?” He’s pacing now, his hands flailing in a frantic manner. “And then I finally got you, I finally got you and I couldn’t save you and you would’ve died. You know those injections were just a lucky strike? You would’ve died!” He’s moving closer to her now, hands back on his head as if he’s trying to shield his brain from whatever thoughts are running through it. “And now I’m living with that every day, _every single day_. How do you think that feels? To live with knowing I almost lost the person most important to me?”

She tries to keep her mind clear as he talks, tries to repeat words over and over in her head. _It’s Tony. It’s just Tony_. _I know how to deal with just Tony._ But nothing helps and his voice keeps getting louder and finally, it’s all too much and she can’t take it anymore.

“How _you_ felt?” Pepper pushes herself back from the table with a force so strong she finds herself wondering in fleeting contemplation if she was actually cured after all. “How _you_ felt? Jesus, Tony, didn’t you ever once think about how _I_ felt? How scared I was when you sacrificed yourself, flying up into that wormhole, when I kept thinking _you_ were going to die? I thought I would never see you again.” She stops, pushing her hands against her eyes, and for a single moment the room lapses into a quietly dangerous silence.

“And so what?”

 _So what?_ “So, I live with it!” She’s all but yelling now and hating herself for it, hating herself for losing control and for losing her temper when it’s the last thing she wants to do. “I live with it every day the same way you do. It was the single most _stupid_ thing you’ve done with yourself.”

“Yes, well. Clearly, I wasn’t aware that it was stupidest thing I’ve ever done when I almost died,” he says sarcastically. “So, thanks for that validation. Thank the aliens, too, while you’re at it.”

She crosses her arms, regards him with a look that in any other situation, she knows, probably would have silenced him in four seconds flat.

“Exactly how drunk are you?”

“How drunk am I…how drunk am I. Gee, I don’t know.” He whirls around, throwing his hands to the sides and raising his voice louder than she thinks he means to. “JARVIS, how drunk am I?”

“Hard to tell without an official breathalyzer, sir, but I’d imagine you’re bordering on an alcohol level of possibly –“

Pepper steps forward, catching his hands with almost brutal force, her words cutting through the drone of the digitized voice. “JARVIS is not your moral compass, Tony. And if you really want someone to validate you, I can do it as a real person.”

He whips around and for a flash of a moment she sees a fire in his eyes that scares her senseless. She wonders if this was how he felt watching her on Extremis, watching her eliminate Aldrich, watching her become a violent killing machine to anyone within a mile radius. Still, she keeps her grip on his arm, hard and steady, refusing to let him back down.

“I can do it as a real person,” she repeats quietly, bringing his head close, wrapping her arms around his back.

“You don’t need a machine.”

When she feels his rigid body start to relax against her, it’s all she can do to stop herself from doing the same and she finds herself wondering how much longer they’re going to have to switch off on picking up each other’s broken pieces until they can be stable enough to fix each other without falling apart on each other at the same time.

“I don’t need a machine.” The fire in his eyes seems to dim slightly, replaced by something sad and desperate. She leans forward, her voice muffled against his hair.

“No. You don’t.” She puts both hands on the sides of his face as he pulls back, moving his palm across her spine, the warmth of his hand a beacon of familiarity that she realizes she’s missed more than she can articulate.

“I didn’t know it was with you.”

Pepper shakes her head, closing her eyes. “I never wanted you to know. You were going through so much…the last thing you needed was to know I was going through the same thing.” She pauses. “It wasn’t fair. Anyway, I’m CEO of Stark Industries. I’m dating a superhero. I can handle myself, right?”

“If last month was any indication, I’d say handling yourself is one thing I can reluctantly take little credit for.” His voice is less emotional now, and only slightly gruff. “Still shoulda told me, though. Now I just feel like an idiot.”

“Mmmm. A drunken idiot?”

He narrows his gaze, looking a bit embarrassed. “Well, you don’t have to go that far. Besides, you know what happens when we get drunk?”

Pepper drags a hand across her cheek, feeling residual wetness on her palms. “We fight.”

“Yeah.” He steps close again, tracing a finger down her chin. “Except, you’re in a relationship with me, remember? So you know what else we do? Because it’s like the highlight of my resume, kind of comes with the whole ‘genius billionaire playboy philanthropist’ territory.”

She puts her lips on his mouth, effectively ending the conversation.

+

There’s no real science to figure out, no large equations to stay up all night solving, but just like before, although he wants it to happen, they both need their time and so it’s another few weeks before he contends he’s finally ready. The night before, they lie in bed together with her head on his shoulder and one of her hands tracing the rim of the arc reactor. Two fingers tease across his chest and she watches the blinking light as it ebbs and flows beneath her palm.

_How big are your hands?_

“You sure you don’t want me to save it?” The tone of her voice is light but underneath there’s a tremor that’s as serious as he knows it to be. Exhaling, he releases a slight chuckle.

“Don’t bother.” He pauses to adjust his posture, moving a hand across her leg. “My memory seems to recall that I already got something to commemorate this once.”

“And my memory seems to recall that it was a damn good thing I saved it, so maybe you should take my suggestions into consideration.”

His laugh comes out sounding like a cry, something she feels like he’s been doing a lot lately. But then again, so has she.

+

This time, he’s the one on the table, searching for her eyes among a sea of people in lab coats and surgical gowns, only allowing his body to relax when he finds her hand pressed against the glass in silent support. At the last minute, he reaches out, latches onto the first hand he comes into contact with.

“Sir?”

“Look, this is important. When you remove the shrapnel – all of it –“ He swallows over the words, letting his brain register their meaning before taking a breath. “Don’t throw it away.”

“…sir?”

“Just save it.” He turns his head back towards the glass before closing his eyes. “I’ll figure out what to do with it.”

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